


Hello, Dean

by Dolimir



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-03
Updated: 2012-04-03
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:19:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dolimir/pseuds/Dolimir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At conventions, Jared and Jensen have danced around how they'd like the boys to go out. However, given that Sam and Dean have done time in both heaven and hell, it raises the question of does their death bring an end to their story? I don't think it does. So, I decided to write my own ending. </p>
<p>Warning: Everyone's dead, but it's all good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hello, Dean

“Tessa! Come on, don’t play hard to get!” Dean sighed in exasperation as he leaned back against the Impala and stared at the starry canopy overhead. The night wind was cold, but he didn’t feel winter’s bitter bite against his skin, for which he was grateful. It seemed like the older he got, the harder it was to stay warm. 

“Hey, buddy, are you okay?” 

Dean turned to find the driver of the semi that had T-boned the Impala jogging toward him, concern written all over his face. He huffed once in amusement as he shook his head. “No, but then again, neither are you.”

The trucker frowned. “What are you talking about?” 

Dean nodded toward the driver’s rig, which was currently lying on its side. 

“Wh-what in the world? I don’t…I don’t remem--”

“Hello, Dean.”

“Holy crap, lady!” The trucker stumbled back several steps. “Where did you come from?” 

Dean shared a small smile with the black haired reaper. “Do you want to tell him or should I?”

Tessa shrugged, so Dean turned his upper body slightly toward the trucker. “I’m afraid you won’t be getting your cargo to its destination on time.”

The trucker looked at his rig, then back at Dean and frowned again. “I’d say that was a given.”

“What Dean is trying to say is that you died in the accident, Clint.”

“Clint? How did you know my name?” The trucker took another step backward. 

“Tessa is a reaper. She’s here to take you to the other side,” Dean said, not unkindly. 

“The other side? But…but…Oh, God, I killed you, didn’t I? I killed us.” Clint’s face collapsed in grief. 

“It’s okay…Clint. Do you mind if I call you Clint?” Dean said in a calm voice. 

The trucker shook his head. 

“It’s okay. Seriously. Just go with Tessa. She’ll make sure you get to the other side safely.”

Clint eyed Tessa suspiciously. “So, she’s an angel?”

Dean shook his head. “No. She’s something better.”

“Come here, Clint.” Tessa’s voice was soft, but there was an edge of strength underlying her words, like a mother trying to convince her scared child to take a step forward. 

Clint stumbled toward her. As he drew closer, Tessa opened her pale arms and wrapped them around the burly trucker. Clint disappeared in a sea of bright light. 

Once the light dissipated, Dean stood straight, then walked toward the reaper, frowning slightly when she didn’t open her arms. “What?”

“You’re going to come at me just like that?” she asked in shock. “No pleading. No dealing. No…whatever?”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Dean smiled. “Nope. I’m ready. Come on, open ‘em up.”

“You’re ready?” she asked incredulously. 

“Yeah, I am.” He rubbed his hands in anticipation, but stopped when she made no move to spread her arms. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” she asked incredulously. “Of all the people on this planet, you know what’s on the other side.” 

“Yeah? So?”

She shook her head in disbelief as walked past him, being careful not to touch him. Leaning against the Impala, she crossed her arms and mimicked the pose he’d been in just moments earlier. 

Dean frowned as he turned to look at her. “What’s going on here, Tessa?”

“Dean--” she started, but let the rest of thought die on the wind. 

He trudged toward her, then leaned back against the Impala beside her. He bumped the reaper’s shoulder companionably. When nothing happened, he shrugged. “It’s not going to be good for me no matter where I’m sent.” 

She looked vaguely uncomfortable.

“We both know if I’m sent to hell that I’ll break. I’ve done it before and there’s no one left to spring me this time, so there’s no reason for me to hold out any hope of rescue. And I’m tired, Tessa, tired of the fight that never ends, of always falling short, of never quite having my act together. I think I’ve been tired for decades. If it’s my ‘destiny’ to be a demon, then maybe I should embrace that path. We both know they’ll turn me before the end of the metaphorical day. However, I garnered something of a reputation down there on my last stay. Maybe it won’t be as bad this time around.”

Dean snorted with amusement. “And, if by some miracle, I’m spared life in the pit, I don’t suspect heaven will be any better. I hear angels hold grudges.” He smirked, but the humor didn’t reach his eyes. “And if I get sentenced to purgatory, well, that’ll be worse than hell as there’s probably a line of creatures waiting to take a piece out of me; and I’m pretty sure they don’t have any intention of letting me join their ranks.”

“All the more reason to stay here.”

“Who are you and what’ve you done with my favorite reaper?” Dean frowned as he leaned away from her. “Are you actually advocating that I stay and become a ghost?”

“No. Of course not.” She sighed, but didn’t look at him, instead fixating on a set of headlights as they approached. “I’ve always been about my job. I’m good at it. I don’t let anything or anyone distract me.” She gave him a significant look. “Everyone dies. Everyone. No exceptions. No matter how much they rail against it. No matter how much they plead. I saw what was happening to the world, but I carried on because that’s who I am, that’s what I was supposed to do.” She shrugged. “I never really thought you and your brother could stop the apocalypse. But you did. You took on Lucifer and won. You made me ques…”

“Sorry,” he said quietly, but sincerely.

They stood in silence, watching a middle aged blonde woman as she climbed out of her car. She looked at the Impala wrapped around a tree just off the highway, looking like a giant metal tumor, then walked nervously on her tiptoes toward the truck. Once she rounded the front of the cab, she cried out in horror, her hand covering her mouth as she ran back toward her car. A distressed moan emanated from her as she grabbed her purse and fumbled half of its contents onto the front seat before she found her cell phone. 

“Were you the one?” Dean finally asked.

“The one?”

“Who took Sam?”

Tessa pushed herself off the car and looked him straight in the face. “Yes.”

“Good.” Dean nodded once. “I find that oddly comforting.”

After a few moments of silence, Tessa studied him. “No questions about where he ended up?”

Dean shook his head. “You wouldn’t tell me anyway.”

“You let him go this time.”

He shrugged. “I had to. You were the one who taught me that denying the inevitable has dire consequences. Besides, that gigantor body of his had taken too many years of abuse. He lived to be fifty, which given our lives was something I never would’ve dreamed possible. It wouldn’t have been fair to bring him back, only to be wracked in constant pain. And though he never said so, I think he was just as tired as I am…was.”

“You took care of--”

“With heaven and hell and every monster in between after us, you bet your sweet ass I did. I burned his body twice, then spread his ashes over twelve states. Burned all of his belongings and spread those ashes as well. The only things that remain on this planet to say that Sam Winchester ever existed are people’s memories and the database system he created from Bobby’s texts.”

“Thorough.”

Dean shrugged, then pushed himself off the Impala. “Okay, let’s see what’s behind door number whatever it’s up to now.” He frowned as he watched the reaper take a step back. “Tessa?”

“I’m sorry, Dean. 

“What…what are you doing?”

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean closed his eyes as the familiar voice washed over him, knowing there wasn’t any way this was going to turn out well. “Hello…sir.”

Death smiled graciously at him before he nodded once to dismiss Tessa. The reaper gave Dean an apologetic look before she disappeared. 

“I’m…uh…honored that you’d be present for the death of this annoying protozoon.” Dean shut his eyes and shook his head minutely, wondering if his inability to keep his mouth shut was some sort of genetic defect. When he opened them again, he found Death smiling at him fondly, like one might with a misbehaving puppy. 

Death shrugged. “Just doing a favor for an old friend.”

Dean leaned back against the Impala, taking comfort in the smooth steel beneath him and waited. He’d learned over the years that one didn’t push Death. Death would answer when he felt like it, if he felt like it at all. 

“I like this new maturity on you,” Death said casually. 

Dean gave him a half smile, because really what was the proper response to a comment like that. 

“You don’t have any questions?” Death asked curiously. 

“Of course I have questions,” Dean said, without annoyance. “I also know that the likelihood of your answering any of them is fairly small, so there really isn’t any point in wasting our time by asking them. Is there?”

“Hello, Dean,” a new voice greeted. 

Dean felt his jaw drop open in shock as he turned to face the newcomer. “Chuck? Chuck Shurley?”

The geeky little prophet looked like he hadn’t aged a day from the last time Dean had seen him, which was before the first apocalypse had been averted some two decades before. He watched silently as Death nodded once to Chuck, then took a step back and disappeared without another word. 

“Oh, crap, they made you an archangel, didn’t they?” Dean speculated in the silence. 

Chuck smiled as he leaned against the Impala beside him, then shook his head. “No. You’re safe. No angels here.”

Flabbergasted, Dean struggled to find something to say. “We looked for you…after everything.”

“I know,” Chuck said, smiling. “I appreciate the gesture.”

“We were afraid the angels might’ve retaliated against you for helping us.”

Chuck bobbed his head as if to say ‘sorry.’

“So why are you here, Chuck?”

“I wanted to say thank you.”

“For what?”

“For everything you did. For fighting the good fight, beyond what anyone else expected or could have predicted. For stopping the apocalypse -- not once but twice. For putting the Leviathans back where they belonged. For taking other hunters under your wing and teaching them everything you know, but basically for just being you.”

A fire truck skidded to a stop on the icy highway and firemen spilled out like clowns from a Volkswagon. Half of them raced toward where the middle age woman was pointing, the other half raced toward the Impala. 

Dean took a deep breath and released it slowly. “You’re God, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Chuck admitted reluctantly. “Wanna take a swing at me?”

Snorting in amusement, Dean shook his head. “I might’ve a decade ago, but now…not so much.”

“I’d let you, you know. I definitely have it coming.”

Dean chuckled and shook his head, but sobered as his situation pressed down on him once again. “So what now?”

Chuck watched the firemen as they shouted their findings to each other. “You were right earlier,” he finally said, without looking toward Dean. “About your afterlife options.”

Dean nodded, wincing as two firefighters applied the Jaws of Life to his car. He patted the steel beneath him, reassuring his baby that everything was okay. 

“And while you weren’t a perfect man, you were a righteous one, and you did my work in my absence.”

“And the verdict is?” Dean asked casually.

“Hello, Dean.”

Dean pushed himself off his car and turned to face his mother. Mary stood several feet away from him with her arms wide open. John stood to her right, smiling from ear to ear, while Bobby and Karen stood on her left side with similar expressions. Without another word, Dean raced forward and wrapped his arms around his mother, holding her as tightly as he could, ignoring her little ‘eep’ of protest. He could feel hands patting his back and shoulder, but held on for another second before he released her and threw himself at his father.

“Hey, son.” John squeezed Dean just as hard as his son was squeezing him. “You did good, Dean. Real good.”

Sniffing, Dean patted his father’s back twice before he stepped back. He turned and grinned at Bobby, before hugging him as well. He smiled at Karen over her husband’s shoulder and she reached forward and tussled his hair. 

He slowly released Bobby, then searched the faces of the crowd growing around him: Ellen, Jo, Bill, Pastor Jim, Caleb, the various human variations of Meg and Ruby. He returned everyone’s smiles and nodded at people he recognized: hunters, his grandparents, his extended family, some of the victims he had helped or tried to help throughout his life. But as he searched the crowd, an icy fist of fear clenched in his stomach. 

“Where’s Sam?” he asked. “Where is he?” He started to turn back toward Chuck, but a tenor voice stopped him. 

“Over here, you big jerk.” 

Dean spun around and found his brother standing next to Jessica Moore, both of them gracing him with huge smiles. In three steps, Dean had his brother in his arms. Tears burned his eyes as he fisted the back of his brother’s shirt. “You, bitch. Why’d ya have to scare me like that?”

Sam threw his head back and laughed, then held Dean at arm’s length so that he could study his face. “We did it, Dean. We finally made it back to mom and dad.”

Dean found himself once again in the midst of his family. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re right about angels holding grudges.” Chuck squeezed between Bobby and John and stopped in front of Dean. “So I had to create an alternative eternal resting place for those who’d been caught in the struggle between heaven and hell. Someplace safe; where you all can enjoy eternity with your families. It was the least I could do after everything.”

“Thank you,” Dean whispered. Squeezing Sam’s hand, he scanned the crowd, once again searching the faces around him, before his gaze finally came back to rest on Chuck. Chuck smiled knowingly at him, then tilted his head to the left. Dean followed the movement until his eyes fell upon Castiel, who was standing awkwardly at the edge of the crowd. 

Those who stood between Dean and the angel took a step back, creating a corridor between the two men. The angel swallowed hard, then started forward tentatively, nodding respectfully to Chuck before stopping in front of Dean. “Hello, Dean. My father has forgiven me. Will you?”

“Of course, I will, you bastard.” Dean laughed and threw his arms around the angel and held him tight, smiling harder when Castiel hugged him back. 

“Let us show you around, son.” John had one arm wrapped around his wife and held the other out toward his eldest. Dean released the angel and took a step toward his father, then stopped and looked back at the pristine Impala sitting on the highway. 

“Come on, baby. What are you waiting for? It’s time to go home.”

In a flash of light, the car morphed into a beautiful black woman, who smiled as she ran forward and took Dean’s hand. With his family gathered around him, Dean finally went home.


End file.
